Swimmers | World Premiere

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 25, 2016

MARIN THEATRE COMPANY PRODUCES
Rachel Bonds’
Swimmers

Production Dates: March 3, 2016 - March 27, 2016
Opening Night: Saturday March 12, 2016

A World Premiere American Play by Rachel Bonds

MILL VALLEY, CA—Marin Theatre Company continues its 49th Season with the World Premiere of Rachel Bonds’ Rella Lossy Award Winning play, Swimmers. Set in a contemporary office, Bonds’ play explores the relationship paradigms of the work space environment through a set of diverse co-workers and their personal lives and habits. This ‘slice of life’ play reveals how each of the characters intermingle with their day-to-day routines and the quirky social dynamics among one another. While each tries to cope with their own realities of the pressures, politics, and company culture inside, a strange tide seems to be rising outside. Sink or swim, each one of them tries to navigate their course against the current, while the world outside their cubicles looms with ominous signs of impending doom.

Swimmers was honored with the 2015 Rella Lossy Award for excellence in a world premiere script. The Rella Lossy Award honors the memory of the late Rella Lossy, a lifelong lover and champion of the American theatre and playwriting. She published several plays, served as the theatre editor of Bay Arts Review, and was a founding member of Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Ms. Lossy was also an actress, poet and supporter of the arts in the Bay Area. This award is funded annually from an endowment created by Dr. Frank Lossy, Rella’s devoted husband, and administered by The San Francisco Foundation.

Leading the Swimmers team is Mike Donahue, a New York based writer/director making his Marin Theatre Company debut. Having already directed Bonds’ The Wolfe Twins in 2014 (Studio Theatre D.C.), Donahue is excited to take the plunge on another of her works. With a Harvard degree and Masters in Directing from Yale University, Mike’s most recent credits include: the World premiere of Matthew Lopez’s The Legend of Georgia McBride (MCC & Denver Center); Jen Silverman’s Phoebe in Winter (Clubbed Thumb) and The Hunters (Cherry Lane Mentor Project); and Ethan Lipton’s Red­ Handed Otter (Playwrights Realm). Regionally: world premieres of Jen Silverman’s The Roommate (Humana Festival); Rachel Bonds’ The Wolfe Twins (Studio Theatre D.C.); and Lauren Feldman’s Grace, or The Art of Climbing (Denver Center). Annie Baker’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya (Weston); Shostakovich’s Moscow, Cheryomushki with new libretto by Meg Miroshnik (Chicago Opera Theatre); Antony & Cleopatra (Shakespeare Festival St. Louis); 4000 Miles (Actors Theatre of Louisville); and Assassins, Henry IV & V (co-director) and A Number (Playmakers Rep). Readings/workshops: Roundabout Underground, NYTW, Soho Rep, Williamstown, McCarter, O’Neill, The Lark, Ars Nova, Chautauqua, Cape Cod Theatre Project. Fellowships: Fulbright (Berlin), Sagal (Williamstown), Drama League, Joe A. Callaway Award (SDCF); Alum, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab; Artistic Director, Yale Summer Cabaret (2007 & 2008); Graduate, Harvard and Yale School of Drama. www.mikemdonahue.com

Partnership with UrbanSitter helps moms attend plays at Marin Theatre Company

MTC is pleased to continue to partner with UrbanSitter, a website and app that helps busy parents find trusted babysitters and nannies, to enable the numerous young families in the Bay Area to attend live theater more easily. For the fourth time this season UrbanSitter will provide babysitters for MTC’s Moms Matinee on Saturday, March 26, at 2:00 pm. Read David Templeton’s feature about this partnership in the North Bay Stage and Screen here.

More about Rachel Bonds

Rachel Bonds is a playwright originally from Sewanee, TN, currently living in Brooklyn. Her plays have been developed or produced by New Georges, Ars Nova, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Williamstown Theater Festival, American Theater Company, The McCarter, Roundabout Underground, Manhattan Theatre Club, Two River Theater, The Arden, New York Stage & Film and SPACE at Ryder Farm. She is an affiliated artist of New Georges’, an Alum of EST’s Youngblood and Ars Nova’s Play Group, and a recent winner of the 2012 Samuel French Short Play Festival. She was recently the 2013 Writer’s Room Resident at The Arden in Philadelphia and was granted a commission from the Studio Theatre in DC as part of their inaugural series of commissioned works. Bonds is a graduate of Brown University.

“Bonds, a rising East Coast playwright, has a gift for quotidian dialogue with a deep well of subtext.” —The Los Angeles Times


CALENDAR INFORMATION
Performing Arts | Theater

WHAT
Rachel Bonds’ Swimmers

WHO
Marin Theatre Company
Directed by Mike Donahue

Featuring: Jolly Abraham, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Adam Adrianopoulos, Jessica Bates, L. Peter Callender, Sarah Nina Hayon, Brian Herndon, Charles Shaw Robinson, Max Rosenak, Kristin Villanueva, Aaron Roman Weiner

WHEN
March 3rd, 2016- March 27th, 2016
Opening Night is Saturday, March 12 at 7:30pm

Performance Days
All Evening Shows at 7:30 pm, Tuesday- Sunday

Matinees:
Sun (Preview) Mar 6, 4:00pm
Thu (Perspectives) Mar 17, 1:00pm
Sat, Mar, 12 (Preview) & 26 (Mom’s Matinee) 2:00pm
Sun Mar 13, 20 & 27, 2:00pm

WHERE
Marin Theatre Company | 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941

ABOUT THE PLAY
Coyotes evading police. Billboards predicting the end of the world. It's been a strange day at the office and it's only 9am. This beautiful "slice of life" ensemble play explores the relationships we take most for granted - those with whom we work every day.

Running Time: 2 hours, including a 15 minute intermission

Ticket Prices
$10-$58

Discounts for seniors, youth, groups, military families and Marin County teachers are available. Contact the Box Office for more details.

MTC ENGAGED SPECIAL EVENTS

  • Library Lectures: Join members of MTC’s artistic staff and cast of the show to discuss the play, playwright and play’s themes on either Tuesday Feb. 16 at 7:30pm at the Belvedere Tiburon Library.
  • Window on the Work: Join members of MTC’s artistic staff and cast of the show to discuss artistic and production elements of MTC’s production of the play, Thursday Feb. 18 at 7:30pm at the Mill Valley Public Library.
  • After Words: Join a member of MTC’s artistic staff (often with one or more members of the cast) for a Q&A talk back after every performance, except Saturday evenings and Opening and Closing Nights.
  • Moms Matinee: MTC is pleased to continue to partner with UrbanSitter, a website and app that helps busy parents find trusted babysitters and nannies, to enable the numerous young families in the Bay Area to attend live theater more easily. For the third time this season UrbanSitter will provide babysitters for the matinee performance of Swimmers on Saturday, March 26, at 2:00 pm.
  • Perspectives: pre-show topical lecture: Thu, 3/17, 12:00pm, matinee performance will begin promptly at 1:00pm.
  • MTC After Hours: Following the Saturday 3/19, 7:30pm performance, join members of the audience and cast in the lobby to continue the conversation. Featuring the musical stylings of jazz trio Mood Swing and drink specials.

ACCESS
Marin Theatre Company is proud to partner with the Theatre Development Fund's Open Captioning Initiative to provide open captioned performances of each of the plays in our mainstage series on the Thursday matinee. The open captioned performance for Swimmers will be Thursday, 3/17, at 1:00pm.

For visually impaired patrons, Large Print playbills are available with one week’s advance notice. To request a Large Print playbill, call MTC’s Box Office, (415) 388-5208, or use the California Telecommunications Relay Service by dialing “711.” For hearing impaired patrons, amplified sound

Assistive Listening Devices are available.

CONTACT
marintheatre.org | (415) 388-5208 | boxoffice@marintheatre.org

ABOUT MTC
Marin Theatre Company is the Bay Area’s premier mid-sized theater and the leading professional theater in the North Bay. We produce a six-show season focused on new American plays, and a four-show Family Series. We are committed to the development and production of new plays, with a comprehensive New Play Program that includes productions of world premieres, two nationally recognized annual playwriting awards and readings and workshops by the nation’s best emerging and established playwrights. Our numerous education programs serve more than 8,500 students from over 40 Bay Area schools each year. MTC strives to create intimate, powerful and emotional experiences that engage audiences to discuss new ideas and adopt a broader point of view. We believe in taking risks and inspiring people to participate in live theater, regardless of personal means. MTC celebrates the intellectual curiosity of our community, and we believe that theater is an important tool to help build empathy. MTC was founded in 1966 and is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

PRESS CONTACT
Sara Waugh, Marketing Director
(415) 322-6022 | saraw@marintheatre.org


The 2014 Kilroy List Challenge Play #10 - Swimmers by Rachel Bonds

Interoffice Memo on the Occasion of “Office Space,” the exhibition (not the movie)

Tails of Marin: Living with Coyotes in Marin